Chasing Chloe
by Lizzy635
Summary: Chloe decides she can't handle being in love with Jack anymore, because she doesn't think he loves her the same way or even if he did, he would never act on it.So she decides to cut off all ties with him.
1. Chapter 1

She's frantically collecting her things, putting stuff in her backpack, almost throwing them in. It would be obvious to every one who watched her that she was in a big hurry. It would seem to them as if she was running from something or someone.

She gets her things together and turns to leave, only to see her boss standing in the doorway.

"I don't have time for the lectures. I have to catch a plane," she tries to walk past him, but is stopped in her tracks. She looks away from him.

"Are you sure you want to do this, Chloe? Have you thought about him? What it's going to do to him? "

She turns to face him and says blankly, "I can't do this anymore." With that she walks by him and starts towards the exit when she hears his last words.

"You are making a mistake, Chloe"

Bill's words are echoing in her mind. Tears sting to her eyes and for a moment she feels like crying. But she knows that there is no time and continues through the hallways of CTU. She knows that Jack gets back from his mission any minute now and if he were to spot her leaving like that, it would all be over.

Unfortunate for her, he's already back to CTU. When she walks by the main room, she spots him talking to an analyst. He doesn't see her as he has his back on her. She panics and fastens her steps, at the same time knowing that it could very well be the last time she ever sees him. He seems so happy, the mission went well and things look good for him and Audrey. But still, she knows him. She might not be the love of his life but all hell will break loose when he finds out about her leaving. And it breaks her heart to million pieces thinking that she is going to put him through that kind of pain. But she reminds herself quickly that she has to stay strong to go through with the plan.

She manages to get out of his sight and continue her way out of the building.

"Ok, thanks Stacy, send the data to my screen," and he walks away from the analyst towards the situation room where Bill is just heading to.

"Bill, where is Chloe? I can't find her. She was suppose to be waiting for me."

"She left, Jack" Bill answers bluntly and with that he goes in the situation room, leaving a confused Jack behind

"What do you mean she left? Left for home already? She wouldn't do that if she promised to wait for me." Jack has followed Bill inside and fear is evident in his voice.

"No, she didn't leave for home, Jack. She left for good."

"What? What are you talking about, Bill? What do you mean by left for good? When? Why? What happened?"

"You happened, Jack," Bill lets out a sigh, acknowledging that is not the time, "she left a minute ago," he states, knowing very well what he's going to do.

Jack ran out of the situation room to the main floor.

"Stacy, check the surveillance cameras, try to locate Chloe. She should still be in the building"

"On it" and the analyst starts typing away.

Bill comes out of the situation room, hoping Jack won't go too far with this.

"She is still in the building but not for long. She is about to go past the security." Stacy shows the video feed to Jack whose wheels start spinning in his head.

"Bill, tell the security not to let Chloe out of the building."

"What? Are you crazy? I can't treat her like a suspect just because you two have issues to work out"

Jack draws his gun and points at Bill, "tell the security not to let her get away" he repeats his request with a deadpan voice.

"Okey, alright, Jack. But it's not going to end well."

Jack starts to run towards the exit while hearing Bill give the order out.

Bill gives the order just when Chloe has gotten past security and is exiting the building. She can hear Bill's voice and her name and starts running. Running towards her cab that is parked just outside. She can see the security guards following her and she can't believe he did this. He actually made them treat her like a suspect. But at the same time she can see the desperation in his actions and understands him.

She doesn't know whose side god is on, but to her it looks like today is her day because she got to the taxi just in time to see him get out of the building and run after her taxi, calling her name to stop the car. She can hear him yelling "dammit" and see him starting towards his car, knowing that by the time he starts the engine, she'd be out of his sight. But she knows the drill of what is going to go down next. After all, she has done the same thing with many, many suspects. There will be a witch hunt through the streets of LA. It's ironic, she thinks to herself, that now she is treated like a suspect and treated as one by the one man she loves the most in this world.

"Driver, there is going to be a freeway overpass a few miles away under which I want you to stop" she gives the cab driver her destination mark. She knows that to get away, she has to go as fast as Jack, if not faster, and that means she has to be the one behind the wheel. And of course there's the fact that they know the cab she is driving with and are following it, so she has to switch the cars to buy time. She has planned this the whole day, nothing can go wrong. She knows how he operates and thinks that she can beat him in his own game.

"Stacy, are you tracking Chloe's cab already?"

"Yes, Jack, she is 5 miles ahead of you. Wait…"

"What, what is going on?"

"She just went under a freeway overpass and hasn't come out yet although she should be."

"Dammit, she stopped. Probably to switch cars. Can you determine the car she switched to?"

"I might, but it's going to take a bit"

"Just do it as quickly as you possibly can".

Jack continues to drive, adds to speed and hopes that he'll catch her. How can he not, he has done it a million times and is better at it than her. There's no way she'll get away, he says to himself, assuring himself that he'll win this little game that they are playing.

"I'm going under the freeway overpass right now and there is no sign of the cab or any other cars. So one car that came out didn't go under it a few seconds before. Identify the car." He almost yells the last sentence to Stacy.

"I have it, Jack. The car is blue Honda Accord with a license plate 5BBM299. The cap between you two is about 2-3 miles. But she's going pretty fast."

"Ok, I'm going add to speed then."

"Be careful. The cap is getting smaller, you should have a visual soon, only…"Stacy stops short, shocked at what she sees on the screen.

"What? What do you see?" Jack almost yells, demanding to know what made Stacy so shocked.

"It appears that she got into a car accident and it doesn't look good. I'm sending ambulance right now."

"Oh my god" is all Jack can say, fearing the worst.

When he reaches the crash site, he sees just how bad it is. At least five cars are involved and it looks like a big mess. But he doesn't pay attention to the other cars when he notices hers. The car is upside down and doesn't really resemble the kind of a car it once were. He quickly runs to it and reaches down to get her out. The sight he sees will probably haunt him forever. Her face is so bloody that it takes him time to be sure that it's really her. He quickly touches her neck to see if there is any pulse and is relieved to find one. But she is stuck some way and he can't get her out. Then something else gets his attention –leaking gas and the car getting on fire. He goes to the other site of the car to get her out from there, his movements getting frantic. It takes him for what feels like an hour to get her out, at the same thinking that every second this car could explode. For a second he even thinks about afterlife. That he would probably go to hell and she would go to heaven. On a normal day it would probably amuse him but this now wasn't the time. When he finally gets her out, he takes her in his arms and moves away from the car, not getting very far before the car explodes.

**

She opens her eyes slowly but closes them quickly because the brightness hurts her eyes. She tries to open them again and this time it's easier to adapt to the light. She sees the ceiling and her eyes move to the door as she hears people's voices coming from that direction. Two nurses have come in and are really shocked at her watching back at them. Soon there are a lot of people with white coats and when he tries to listen what they are saying to each other, she only hears fragments like "I thought she was a goner…nearly five years have passed…it's remarkable". She gets really upset by what she hears and one of the machines starts beeping instantly which gets the attention of the nurses and doctors in the hospital room.


	2. Chapter 2

His phone is ringing for minutes now but he doesn't answer. When he finally does, he shouts to the phone, "WHAT???"

"Jack, It's Bill. The hospital just called. She woke up."

The blond woman in his bed lifted her head just to see him getting out the door. She doesn't wonder about it for long and doesn't really care. After all, they aren't really in a relationship, she is just someone he wants to fuck once or twice a week. He's such a basket case that she's afraid what she might find if she digs any deeper in his soul. She gets dressed and before leaving, leaves him a note to call her when he wants it again and writes "Stacy" under the message.

He gets to the hospital, only to be greeted by Bill

"Jack, you look like hell," the older man comments his appearance as if he's seeing it for the first time. Only he doesn't. Jack's been like that ever since that day, rarely getting himself appear like a decent person. But for some reason, today he actually acknowledged it as if those five years never happened.

"I want to see her" he just says with no emotions.

"Jack, you can't right now. She's very upset because she just found out how long she has been in coma. It was really devastating for her. We don't know what her reaction to seeing you might be, to seeing any of us."

Bill sees something flicker in his otherwise emotionless face. It's like for the first time since that day he actually lets his pain be visible to others, even if only for a second.

"Jack, you have to give her time. You have waited for nearly five years. What difference does a few more days make?" It seems to Bill that he's really considering his request, only to find it a red herring as he quickly starts towards her room. But he can't get far as he is rounded with CTU agents and tazered by one of them.

It's hard, keeping them apart, even for a little while longer, Bill is thinking to himself, but he can't let Jack's eagerness get in the way of her healing. Right now he doesn't think she could handle the emotions what seeing Jack would cause her.

**

Having been sedated and sleeping for a few days after waking up from coma, Chloe feels a certain calmness when seeing a familiar face pop his head in from the door of her hospital room.

"Hi, Mr. Buchanan," she greets him and lets a small smile come to her face, obviously glad to see him.

Bill has flowers with him which he puts to the footboard of her bed and pulls a chair to sit at her bed. He leans in closer to her and takes her right hand in his hands.

"Hi, Chloe," he smiles and at the same wants to cry not believing she has really woken up, "Welcome back".

Now tears fall down Chloe's face when she says "It doesn't feel like five years, Mr. Buchanan. It seems like yesterday when I decided to take my fate to my own hands. Oh my God. You were right about that. I ended up making the worst mistake of my life. And now I have lost five years of my life just like that," her voice is hoarse and she talks very slowly.

"Chloe, that's not true. That's not what I meant by those words. No one, I mean, no one could have expected it to go like that. But you have got to stop this and think about your recovery. It's going to be a long way but it's what you have to focus on." Silence fell to the room for a moment as he looks at her hand in his hands and she stares at the ceiling.

"How is he?" Chloe turns to face Bill whose face changes so that she knows that he doesn't really want to talk about it.

"He's…" Bill doesn't know how to start and pauses for a second before continuing, "The day, the day of the accident, when you fell in coma and the doctors didn't give you much hope, he lost it. His relationship with Audrey went downhill so fast that it was over before it began. He was just very depressed," Bill stops, seeing her get upset.

"Maybe, I should stop, it's not good for you to get like that. I'll let you get some rest."

"No, Mr. Buchanan, I want to hear everything, " she pleads him to continue.

"Alright," he sighs and continues, "As I said he was really depressed after letting Audrey go, at some point he left his work, too. He said he didn't care if the world ended, we won't save it until you woke up. After his quitting, I haven't kept tabs on his life so much. I know he has lead a very self-destructive life with partying, doing drugs and sleeping with random women. That is the Jack Bauer's life of five years, not much..." he stops cold seeing her grasp for air accompanied with beeping machines. The white coats entering the room shove him out the door. He starts to regret his decision to talk about Jack when he spots the very man at the end of the hall. He doesn't let the fact slip by that Jack has finally shaven and cleaned himself up reminding Bill the Jack he once knew.

"How is she?" he asks with concern.

"Not good, I'm afraid. I got her upset." Bill says regretfully.

"What did you do?" Jack gets to his face with a tone full of threatens.

"She asked me how you were and I told her about your state of mind for the last five years"

Jack steps back and starts away from Bill, "You shouldn't have done it" he simply says and leaves.

**

A week later she's off the machines and there is nothing life-threatening wrong with her health. And she still hasn't wanted to see Jack and Jack has honored her wish.

She has been given sleeping pills and is sleeping peacefully when he enters her room. He steps closer, close enough to touch her face, sliding her fingers up and down her left cheek.

"I'm sorry that I have do this." and puts his one hand under her back and the other under her legs, lifting her from the bed and taking her in his arms.

***

A car pulls up in front of a cabin up in the mountains. A man steps out of the car and opens the passenger door to see a woman sleeping peacefully in the passenger seat even after a long drive from the city. He takes her in his arms, closes the door of the car and starts towards the cabin. Having reached indoors, he lays her on a couch near the fireplace, having decided to light the fire in it soon. He takes his cell from the back pocket of his jeans and dials a number, waiting for an answer.

"Bill Buchanan" answers a grumpy voice at the other end of the line.

"Bill, listen to me. I took Chloe. She's safe. Don't bother to look for us. I'll get her back by Monday."

"Jack, is that you? What to you mean you t o o k Chloe? Out of the hospital? Are you crazy? She needs medical attention, Jack. She's still very weak, not to mention that she sill hasn't fully recovered. Jack, she can't even walk yet."

"She doesn't need to walk here with me. I'll take care of her. Her doctor told me that there is nothing life threatening wrong with her, but he told me that her physical recovery isn't going so well because something psychological is blocking that."

"There are other options to take care of her mental state. You didn't have to kidnap her. Where did you take her?"

"You know I can't tell you that. Bill, I need this time with her," he glances at her and sees that she's starting to wake up, "Bill, I got to go." And he hangs up the phone, but not before hearing 'that-son-of-a-bitch' at the other end of the line.

Jack sits down in an armchair next to the couch Chloe's laying on. He gets himself sitting comfortably and just looks at her opening her eyes slowly.

She open her eyes and is surprised that the surrounding isn't the same white roo that she fell asleep in. For a moment she is fearing for the worst, that the terrorists have kidnapped her but is relieved of that fear the second her eyes find his. A part of her is so happy to see him, the other part just wants to cry.

"Jack," she says quietly, "Where am I?"

"Hi, sweetheart, how are you feeling?" asks Jack, obviously ignoring her question.

"Why are you answering a question with a question, "she attacks him, but then pauses and changes to more friendlier tone, "I feel a bit fuzzy, but I'm OK."

"Good, I'll make you something to eat, that should give you strength and take away the fuzziness." And Jack begins to move to the kitchen when Chloe does something unexpected. Somehow she has managed to get enough strength to grab his arm with both hands and holds on to it so tightly that Jack can feel her fingernails in his flesh. But even though he endures pain, he doesn't pull away. He simply turns to look at her and is surprised to see her face look so desperate.

"Don't go, "she pleads with him.

He smiles at her crookedly and complies. He moves to lay down with her and even though the couch isn't big enough for two people, they fit in perfectly. He takes her in his arms and they both get comfortable, knowing that they probably won't leave it any time soon. It's just then, when she lays her head on him, she feels the urgent need to cry and doesn't hold back anymore, feeling his grip on her tightening even more.


	3. Chapter 3

They have fallen asleep together like that and have slept all through the night. It's Chloe who opens her eyes first and as she stares at the man sleeping peacefully with his hand wrapped tightly around her, she remembers just how she got there. For a moment she gets angry and doesn't know whether to hit him awake or try to get to the phone lying on the table, to call somebody for her. But then she realizes something, she doesn't know where she is and even if she did she would never get to the phone. So has only one option. As her hands aren't free, she uses her teeth by biting his ear, making sure, it hurts. It doesn't take a scientist to know what goes down next. It all goes so fast that before she knows it, he has rolled on top of her and pulled her arms on top of her head. He looks at her with an unreadable face and moves really close to her, his face staying only inches away from hers.

"You don't want to start this with me," he warns and quickly rises from the couch, stands up and starts towards the kitchen to make coffee, but stops cold at her next words.

"I hate you, know that? Why do you have to do this? You have never cared about me and now that I'm sick, you feel guilty and feel the obligation to help me. You and your battered ego. But you know what? I don't want your help. I don't want anything from you. You should have let me die," she has gone from angry to almost tears by the time she finishes. She knows that she has gone to a dangerous territory with Jack but couldn't help herself.

Jack listens her tirade but doesn't turn around to face her. For a moment he thinks about straightening this thing out with her right away but decides to wait with that till they have both cooled down."I'm going to make some coffee and make you something to eat. I just lost my appetite." With these words he leaves the room, leaving a miffed Chloe behind.

When he comes back with two cups of coffee and some sandwiches, he puts them on the table and says, "here you go, eat this, you need to get your strength back". Chloe doesn't say anything, but complies, knowing that there is no point to fight this. She lets Jack help her in a sitting position and starts eating. Jack sits in an armchair close by.

When she has finished eating, she starts to lay back down but is stopped by Jack who keeps her in this position. He puts aside the dishes and scrunches down to sit on the table in front of the couch.

"I want to discuss your outburst." he says firmly.

"There is nothing to discuss," she gets all Chloe-like and frowns, annoyed by where this is going.

"Oh, I think there is. You said you hated me. What would make you say something so absolutely untrue?"

"I do hate you!" she declares.

"No, you don't," and to prove his point, he kisses her gently on the mouth and she doesn't kiss back but doesn't pull away from him either.

He then pulls away and looks at her reaction which is pleading.

"Don't do this. You can't do this to me. I know that you are feeling guilty for what happened to me and everything, but…"

Jack cuts her off in the middle of her sentence by putting his hand on her mouth.

"Listen to me closely; because I'm only going to say it once," he looks her straight in the eye and continues," I am not here with you because I'm feeling guilty. I'm here because I want to be with you. I'm sorry that it took me you leaving, almost dying and being in a coma for five years to finally get it."

"Get what? Jack, you are not making any sense?"

He kisses her again, this time more forcefully. At first she doesn't respond but finds herself unable to resist and kisses him back.

Soon they pull back to get some air. He remains close to her and whispers, "I love you. I love you more now than I ever have before. The five years without you were hell, and I'm sorry it took me almost losing you to understand that."

"Well, you can be slow sometimes," she responds with a frown that gets a chuckle from him. They kiss again, more passionately, more hungrily. The wanting is evident in both of their movements and soon Jack picks her up and taker her in the bedroom.

**

Hours later, Jack and Chloe are in each other's arms and lying in bed naked, just enjoying each others company.

"Jack," Chloe decides to break the silence.

"Yeah?"

She rolls on top of him: "I'm sorry I ran away like that. I know now that it was a horrible mistake and I shouldn't have done that".

Jack is silent at first, not knowing what to say, not wanting to confirm her thoughts."No you shouldn't have." He pauses and looks at her seriously but continues with a lighter tone."But maybe I needed this to realize the depth of my feelings for you. But that's not what I was thinking of when I learned about your little stunt."

Chloe throws him a glance full of annoyance and surprise.

"What? You don't think so. Are you really trying to say that you really meant to leave?"

Chloe nods slowly.

"Oh, honey, did you really think I would have let you go?!" Jack asks and grins when her face confirms it. "Even if the escape had been successful, I would have tracked you down and dragged you back. Or stayed with you. But there is no way I would have accepted being without you. What do they say about that...You never know what you got, until it's gone."And with that, he pulls her closer.

There are tears in her eyes now, "I wanted to escape, but not just because I couldn't bear to work with you anymore. Part of me hoped that you would follow me and not because you just need me, but because I'm the one you love and want to be with. I sort of wanted to push you to make a choice between me and Audrey. But it turned out so wrong. I can't imagine what you must have gone through when I fell in coma and the doctors didn't give me much hope."

Chloe looks at him, but he's deep in thought, remembering the fears, emotions and despair that overtook him when the doctors told him that there is a great chance she would never wake up from coma.

"It was like the earth had stopped moving, time just stopped," Jack finally shares his thoughts with her, "I went to see you one last time after that. I was too scared to visit you, I didn't want to accept the truth, and ignoring it was the best way to cope. I couldn't move on and I didn't want to deal with the presence. I guess I just lived in the past. Guilt was just the part of the misery. I couldn't help beating myself up for not acknowledging my feelings for you sooner. But all in all, I was just a man in love with a woman who was in coma. So you can throw that theory of me wanting to be with you because of guilt under the bus."

Jack smiles but Chloe doesn't appreciate his attempt to make a joke and frowns. Just then she feels the sudden urge to kiss him which she does, hungrily, wanting to show him that all his suffering is over and she is there with him always.

"I love you," she murmurs between kissing him.

"Oh, really, that's good to know," Jack says in a playful tone, "Because I was beginning to think that you want me for just the sex that I'm so good at."

"Arrogant jerk," she mutters and turns her back on him.

Jack just laughs and rolls to her side and takes her in his arms.

"I am, but I'm your arrogant jerk," he whispers in her ear. "All of me, it's yours. Never forget it!"

FIN


End file.
